Is Changpeng Zhao’s role in Aster’s story revealing how public reputation continues to drive market exposure?
Summary
- Changpeng Zhao personally bought Aster, triggering a sharp price rally and renewed discussion on individual influence in decentralized markets.
- Zhao’s Aster posts mirror Musk’s Dogecoin effect, where social visibility and credibility repeatedly fueled short-term token momentum.
- YZi Labs’ backing links Aster to Binance’s ecosystem, aligning it as a decentralized extension amid Hyperliquid’s growing market lead.
- The perpetual futures race now centers on Aster versus Hyperliquid, defining how decentralized derivatives evolve with time.
Changpeng Zhao sends Aster soaring
Aster, the native token of the decentralized trading platform Aster DEX, jumped nearly 35% on Nov. 2 after Binance founder Changpeng Zhao revealed that he had personally bought the asset.
In a short post on X, CZ said he had used his own money to purchase Aster (ASTER) on Binance and clarified that he was not a trader but a long-term holder. The tweet quickly fueled market momentum and drove the token’s price to $1.25 before it corrected to about $0.93 as of Nov. 4.
Over the past two months, CZ has repeatedly mentioned Aster in several posts that together formed a clear pattern of engagement.
His first mention appeared on Sep. 17 when he congratulated the project on its launch and praised its early trading performance, writing “Well done. Good start. Keep building.”
He followed this with another post on Sep. 29, pointing out that Aster’s per-trade fees were lower than its competitors and adding “Lower fees, higher volume.”
On Oct. 4, he commented on Aster’s promotional booth at the Token 2049 conference, describing its design as “great in black and yellow,” a subtle nod to Binance’s color scheme.
Each of these posts helped raise Aster’s visibility and set the stage for the sharp rally that followed his purchase disclosure, drawing comparisons to earlier instances where influential figures casually mentioned certain tokens that later saw large price swings.
Musk did it first
The pattern of CZ’s posts about Aster closely resembles how Elon Musk once drew attention to Dogecoin (DOGE). Musk’s tweets were followed by steep price surges that eventually pushed DOGE to more than 20,000% gains within months.
His references to “Dogecoin to the moon,” memes featuring the Shiba Inu logo, and mentions of accepting DOGE for Tesla merchandise turned the token from an internet joke into a multi-billion-dollar digital asset.
In April 2019, Musk tweeted “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.” An econometric study later showed that after Musk tweeted about DOGE, the counterfactual price, which means what it would have been without the tweet, remained largely stable while the actual price rose by an average of 33%.
In 2021, posts such as “Dogecoin to the Moon” and “The people’s crypto” coincided with daily trading volumes above $20 billion. At its peak in May 2021, DOGE hit $0.73 after trading below a cent just a year earlier.
Analysts noted that each message, even without any direct investment disclosure, triggered short-term market reactions visible in both social media activity and trading data. CZ’s engagement around Aster in 2025 shows a similar pattern, though his remarks are factual rather than speculative.
Both Musk and CZ understand how influence operates in digital markets. Their audiences interpret even brief comments as signals rather than opinions. That interpretation then spreads through reposts, online communities, and trading channels, turning casual mentions into market-moving moments.
In both cases, the reaction arises not from technical data or fundamentals but from the personal credibility of the speaker. The market perceives personality as validation and validation turns into liquidity.
The Binance DNA inside Aster
CZ’s connection to Aster runs through YZi Labs, the venture arm previously known as Binance Labs. YZi Labs made a seed investment in Aster’s predecessor, Astherus, in November 2024, placing it within Binance’s extended ecosystem. When Aster’s token launched through a Token Generation Event on Sep. 17, YZi Labs was listed among the official backers.
Aster entered the market during a phase of rapid growth in decentralized derivatives. Hyperliquid (HYPE) has become the leading platform in this space, drawing both capital and users away from centralized exchanges.
Data from DefiLlama placed Hyperliquid’s monthly trading volume at $308 billion for the month of October, marking a major transfer of activity from centralized exchanges toward decentralized systems.
Aster’s structure and market entry seem built to counter that trend. Its core features mirror Hyperliquid’s model of leveraged trading and multi-chain access while drawing from Binance-linked liquidity and branding.
As per reports, Aster’s 24-hour trading volume in September reached around $22 billion, temporarily surpassing Hyperliquid’s estimated $10 billion during the same period.
The business reasoning behind CZ’s visible support is clear. Derivatives have long been Binance’s most profitable segment, making up more than half of its global trading activity across several quarters.
Hyperliquid’s growth created a strong on-chain competitor, reducing Binance’s control over a sector that had defined much of its dominance.
Through YZi Labs’ involvement, Aster serves as a strategic extension of Binance’s ecosystem, a platform capable of operating in decentralized finance while staying aligned with the brand’s liquidity base and institutional network.
Public data still show that much of Aster’s early momentum came from promotional rewards and trading incentives. Analysts tracking decentralized exchanges note that while user growth and transaction counts have increased sharply, order book depth and recurring liquidity remain below Hyperliquid’s levels.
Where the DEX race heads next
The perpetual futures market is becoming the main driver of crypto trading. Recent data show that perpetuals account for nearly 68% of Bitcoin’s total trading volume in 2025, up from 66% a year earlier, and make up a massive chunk of all crypto derivatives activity.
Total decentralized perpetual exchange volume reached an estimated $1.8 trillion in the third quarter of 2025, the highest level on record. Within that figure, Hyperliquid controlled roughly 54% of open interest, maintaining its lead even as new competitors entered the market.
The derivatives sector is steadily moving toward multi-chain infrastructure, with leading exchanges now offering access across Ethereum (ETH), BNB Chain (BNB), Solana (SOL), and Arbitrum (ARB).
Improving capital efficiency, deepening liquidity, and enabling cross-protocol margin systems have become key engineering priorities for these platforms.
At the same time, Coinbase and several U.S. firms have secured CFTC approval to offer regulated perpetuals, linking on-chain liquidity with compliant trading structures.
The expansion of regulated access may enlarge the perpetual market over the next few years as institutional investors seek exposure without taking on custodial risk.
Within this evolving structure, the rivalry between Aster and Hyperliquid is shaping the direction of decentralized derivatives. Hyperliquid currently holds higher open interest and greater trading depth, while Aster has seen rapid early volume growth driven by incentives and quick exchange integrations.
The next phase of this competition will depend on whether Aster can convert campaign-driven activity into sustainable trading or if Hyperliquid can retain its dominance against a rival supported by YZi Labs and Changpeng Zhao’s network.
